DIY: Pillow of Brotherhood

My husband & I have so many things with our fraternity/sorority letters on them that we don’t really wear. Neither one of us are sweatshirt people so I was asked to make his beloved sweatshirt into a pillow. I mean you need a pillow to go with the awesome quilted blanket below:

Skull t-shirt quilt made by my husband’s mom.

So, my darlings if you have a lettered sweatshirt that you never wear or even one that you keep around just for an amazing graphic, let’s make a pillow!

What you’ll need

A ruler

Fabric Chalk

Scissors

A sewing machine

Thread (the color of your pillow)

A pillow insert or pillow filling

Pins

Directions

1. Measure your pillow insert and write it down.

2. Using the measured dimensions add 1.25″ (5/8 seam allowance on each side).

3. Pin and align your letters/graphic. Mark out the desired dimensions on the fabric using your fabric chalk and ruler. (This will give you an idea of how your pillow will look.)

Marked and ready to be cut.

4. Cut out desired marked area (maybe take a lent brush to your sweater YIKES).

Cut and ready to be flipped on the wrong side.

5. Sew, on the wrong side, 3.25 sides of the pillow, leaving an area to stuff the pillow insert.

Note: If you’re using a pillow filling you can sew up more, just make sure you can get the filling in.

6. Turn the pillow on the right side and stuff in your insert or filling. We decided to take a ugly pillow from Ikea and take its filling.

Bye bye weird pillow case!

7. Tuck in the area that was not sewn and pin. Sew either by hand or via machine. I decided to hand stitch and used a super easy technique called a whip stitch (This stitch is also used to blind hem and I find it quite relaxing).